[Interview] Jrodtwins say ‘hi’ to Malaysian fans

Jason and Justin Rodjanapanyakul, or more popularly known as Jrodtwins, recently made their way to Malaysia as part of the iM4U Reach Out 2015 lineup.

The 24-year-old Asian-American YouTube personalities entertained their Malaysian fans not only with their singing performances, but also with their funny antics on stage. Born to a half-Chinese, half-Thai father and a Chinese-Vietnamese mother, the pair of twins admit to being big fans of Jayesslee (Australian twin YouTube personalities, Sonia and Janice Lee), naming them as their inspiration to become YouTube cover singers themselves.

TheHive.Asia had the chance to sit down with the boys and ask them about their Malaysian visit, their future plans and what they would say to attract new Malaysian fans.

Justin: We've never been here before. We've only been to Thailand. That’s the closest we've ever been to Malaysia, since our family lives in Thailand.

Did you work with any Malaysian artists during this event?

Jason: Unfortunately, we didn't work with any. We just performed in the same concert.

For people who aren't familiar with you in Malaysia, can you give them some details about yourself? Like how you get started?

Justin: Well, it started when I was invited to sing at a benefit concert – to raise awareness for North Korean refugees. I have done that before but for this one I wanted to try something new. My brother was learning guitar on YouTube at the time, so I said, “Hey, let’s do this together”. We started practicing together and we performed there, and everyone was asking us whether we had a YouTube channel. We never actually thought about starting one. But we eventually did and we received so much positive feedback, we continued to post every once in a while, mostly for our family and friends. We didn't really take it seriously. That was three years ago. This year, we were approached by management, so now we’re trying to be more serious with it.

The twins cover hits such as Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”.

What advice would you give to those who want to make it big on YouTube?

Jason: Be more consistent. Everybody knows consistency is key on YouTube. And that’s one problem we've always had. We like to just have too much fun. Even though, making video should be fun. It’s hard to be serious because we’re twins, it’s hard to be professional around each other. At least when you’re with a friend, you have this boundary and you can tell them to be serious. When it’s with your own twin, it’s harder.

Any future plans? What can we look forward to from Jrodtwins?

Justin: We’re going to post a lot more content on YouTube. That’s the very least that our fans deserve. We wouldn't be here without them. Also, potentially maybe move somewhere where there’s a bigger YouTube community. Back where we’re from, the YouTube scene isn't that big. Because we live in Seattle, a totally different place from L.A. It’s inspiring to stay around people who have the same interests. We’ll do more covers and maybe some more originals, because people keep asking for that. But we’re known as the cover artists. I think we kind of follow Jayesslee toward that step, too. Since they only do covers, so we’re like “we wanna do covers too” [laughs].

Here’s your chance to convince Malaysians to be your fans, what would you like to say to them?

Jason: I don’t want to force you to be our fans [laughs]. But I think it’s more like you guys should become our friends. We really like to interact with our fans, it gets out of hands sometimes. Fans are the ones who really help us create content, who make us really think out of the box. Whenever they leave comments, it really, really helps push us to keep posting. So please, help us stay motivated by becoming our fans.

Take a listen to the latest cover from Jrodtwins, Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”, featuring Clara C: